Scottish Television
- For other uses, see Television in Scotland
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| Based in | Glasgow |
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| Broadcast area | Central Scotland |
| Launched | 31 August 1957 |
 Scottish Television logo, 1977-1985[1]  Scottish Television logo, 1989-1993  Final Scottish Television logo before rebrand, 2003-2006[1] |
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| Closed | lost on-air identity on 30 May 2006 (rebranded as STV along with Grampian Television) |
| Website | stv.tv |
| Owned by | STV Group plc |
Scottish Television (now legally known as STV Central Ltd and referred to on-air as STV) is Scotland's largest ITV franchisee, and has held the ITV franchise for Central Scotland since 31 August 1957. It is the second oldest ITV franchisee still active (Granada Television being the oldest). The channel is now owned and operated by STV Group plc (formerly SMG plc), which also owns another independent television franchise, Grampian Television (now STV North), based in Aberdeen.
STV Central produces news for the West and East halves of its transmission region (STV News at Six) along with current affairs, politics and sports programmes (in both English and Gaelic) for Northern and Central Scotland. Along with STV North and ITV Tyne Tees & Border, STV Central is a rival to the publicly-funded national broadcaster, BBC Scotland. The station is based in Pacific Quay.
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[edit] History
Scottish Television was founded by Canadian businessman Roy Thomson (later Lord Thomson) in association with the Theatre Royal's owners Howard & Wyndham Ltd. Thomson invited Canadian television producer Rai Purdy to become the station's first head of programming. In the months leading up to opening night, Purdy pledged that the new channel would provide first class entertainment and as much cultural programming as possible as well as allowing Scottish talent every opportunity to develop and be seen on STV.[2]
[edit] 1950s
Scottish went on-air on Saturday 31 August 1957 at 5:30pm with the variety special This is Scotland, broadcast live from the Theatre Royal studios - STV was the first ITV franchise to launch outside the three largest regions (London, the Midlands & Northern England) and thereby, the first to operate throughout the week.
[edit] 1960s
The company soon gained a reputation for musical entertainment, variety, documentary films under Dr John Grierson, and sports coverage. It also sponsored Scottish Opera and televised live opera and ballet, networking more opera than similar television companies.[3] Much of the station's early output was provided by ATV, under a ten-year deal worth £1 million per year. By 1965, ATV's senior producer Francis Essex[4] had become Scottish's programming controller.
It also gained a reputation for low budget, entertainment-driven programming. It was jokingly said that STV only owned two pieces of equipment; one telecine to show western films and another to show the commercials.[5] Lord Thomson was also criticised, for using much of the profits made by Scottish television and using them to further gain his own personnel interest in buy Newspapers, instead reinvesting into more original programming for the station.[6]
In 1965, the chairman of the Independent Television Authority Charles Hill paid a visit to STV's Glasgow studios during which he observed an edition of the popular daytime entertainment show One O'clock Gang. So appalled by it, he personally axed the programme with the words "My God, how long have you been getting away with this?".[7]
Television for schools from the launch of the station was pioneered in association with Glasgow Corporation, and post graduate television services initiated, including surgery, in conjunction with universities. Programmes were devised for the emerging countries in the British Commonwealth, and the Thomson Foundation was created to educate and train television producers, journalists and engineers, this operated from Kirkhill House - a bespoke studio complex near Newton Mearns. Programmes from TFTC (Thompson Foundation Television College) were never seen by STV's viewers, but much of STV's redundant equipment found a new home here, including STV's first OB unit.
Although the early days of the ITV network were a financial gamble the STV service soon became profitable, resulting in Thomson claiming that 'running a commercial television station is like having a licence to print money'.[8] In 1966, the company was listed on the London Stock Exchange for the first time.
Scottish Television retained its franchise at the first time of asking in 1967, despite strong competition from a consortium led by the future BBC Director General Alasdair Milne and strong indications that the company would lose its franchise. In the event, Lord Thomson was forced by the ITA to reduce his stake in the station from 80% to 25%, effectively ending the company's standing as a subsidiary of the Thompson Group.
[edit] 1970s
Like many franchises within the ITV network, Scottish struggled through the late 1960s and early 1970s with a recession, increased transmitter rental fees, taxation on income (rather than profits), a decline in advertising revenue and the costs of converting equipment for the start of colour broadcasting - marked by the opening of the Gateway Theatre studios in Edinburgh. Later on in 1974, Scottish moved to new purpose built studios in Cowcadden, Glasgow.
By the mid 1970s, a change in taxation rules and a general increase in advertising spend saw STV's fortunes recover. In the following twenty years, the company gained greater access to the national network, primarily through the soap opera Take the High Road and the long-running detective series Taggart. More recent contributions have included the quiz Wheel of Fortune and the adaptation of the Rebus crime books.
[edit] 1980s
During the 1970s and 1980s, Scottish Television produced a wide range of religious programming including weekly church services, half-hour religious programmes on a Sunday, religious contributions to the new Channel 4, the ever-popular epilogue Late Call, and occasional documentaries, produced by Executive Producer Rev. Dr Nelson Gray, a Minister of the Congregational Church, and Rev. Eric Hudson, a Minister of the Church of Scotland. As the 1990s came and public service broadcasting receded, religious programmes were gradually phased out.
Since the company originally went on air, images not provided electronically 'live' within the studio centre were provided via telecine machines, allowing the station to run local advertisements to fill the ad breaks within and on either side of local and networked programming. Local advertisements - where a single image was shown on screen whilst the continuity announcer read the promotional message 'live' – was sourced from a standard 35 mm slide.
As was industry-practice at the time, STV programming would either be totally studio-based, have film inserts where required (the local news programme Scotland Today and Take the High Road being early examples of this), or other completely film-based shows with no studio content. The company employed up to six film crews who could be assigned to providing filmed news coverage on a daily basis, football matches, or feature programming such as Redgauntlet or Weirs Way.
Filmed inserts into local news added a significant delay to the airing of programmes. STV, having no film processing capability at Cowcaddens, sub-contracted this to a specialist company - Humphries Film Laboritories. Exposed film would be rushed to an industrial unit in North Glasgow to be processed and returned to Cowcaddens for the 16 mm film to be edited and prepared for transmission. This process often caused much annoyance to reporters and crews alike, as to ensure inclusion of a breaking story for the Scotland Today news segment, film had to reach the labs no later than 4.30 pm. By the early to mid-1980s and like much of ITV, STV had dispensed with 16 mm film and embraced electronic news gathering, with Sony's Betacam being the chosen system.
In October 1981, Scottish Television became the first ITV station to operate a regional Oracle teletext service, containing over 60 pages of local news, sport and information.[9]
[edit] 1990s
In 1990, Sir William Brown retired as managing director after 24 years of service, making him the longest serving chief executive in ITV history. He subsequence become chairman of Scottish Television plc from 1991 until 1996[10]
In early 1992, Nigel Pickard become controller of entertainment and drama features. When he transferred from the outgoing ITV company TVS, some of the station's children's programmes continued production under Scottish Television including Art Attack and How 2. Pickard was based at an office in Maidstone (where many of Scottish's new acquisitions were produced) until 1995.
After retaining its franchise in 1993 unopposed, Scottish Television invested shares in various ITV companies and media firms, including a 25% stake in GMTV (sold off to ITV plc in 2004 for £31 million), a 20% stake in HTV Group plc (sold off to the Wales and West contractor's future owners United News and Media in 1996) and smaller stakes in UTV and ITN.[11] For a short time, Scottish became a buyout target for Yorkshire Tyne Tees Television.[12]
Scottish Television went onto acquire Caledonian Publishing, which published The Herald and Glasgow Evening Times in July 1996.[13] A year later, Scottish Media Group plc brought out the ITV contractor for Northern Scotland, Grampian Television, for £105 million.[14]
[edit] 2000s
On 2 March 2006, it was announced by SMG plc (now STV Group plc) that Scottish Television would revert back to the brand name of STV, that it used from the start of colour broadcasting in 1969 until 30 August 1985, and which the station was still informally known as in parts of Scotland. At the same time, Grampian Television would also become known as STV. The new-look branding was launched on 30 May 2006.
Regional news and advertising has remained segmented with viewers in the East of the region receiving their own edition of STV News at Six, a late night news bulletin and separate local advertising. Former managing director of Scottish, Bobby Hain is now the managing director for both STV regions. Hain was also briefly director of programmes for the two regions following the departure of former Grampian Television MD, Derreck Thomson. In November 2008, former strategy director of Channel 4, David Brook, took over the role. Scottish Television's head of news, Gordon MacMillan, became STV's head of news across Scotland, following the departure of Craig Wilson from STV North (Grampian).
[edit] Studios
From the station's launch in 1957 until 1974, Scottish Television used the Theatre Royal, Glasgow on Hope Street as their main studio base and headquarters. Secondary studios at the Gateway Theatre on Leith Walk in Edinburgh were built in 1969 to accommodate more productions. The new facilities grew in importance in after a fire gutted Studio A and several production suites at the Glasgow studios - a fire in which two firemen were killed.
Scottish's main base moved in 1974 to custom built facilities on Renfield Street, Cowcaddens, Glasgow on land opposite the Theatre Royal site. Construction began on the new base in 1972 and it was officially opened on 12 December 1974 by Princess Alexandra,[15] and was expanded with Scottish's needs in 1977. Following the completion of the new base, the Theatre Royal was sold to Scottish Opera to become the first national opera house in Scotland, and the home of Scottish Opera and Scottish Ballet.
Cowcaddens became Scottish's main studio base where the majority of their productions were based. However, with the growing use of independent production companies as a source of programming, the need for increased studio space was alleviated. New Scottish programming, such as Art Attack and How 2 from TVS was being made at the Maidstone Studios, where these programmes were formally based. As a cost saving measure the Gateway Theatre studios in Edinburgh, which for a time became the permanent studio home for Take the High Road were closed in 1994.
In 2006, the newly rebranded STV moved from their Cowcaddens base to new, smaller studios in Pacific Quay alongside the headquarters of their rivals BBC Scotland. As a result of the move, the entire Cowcaddens site, with the exception of an extension containing The Herald and Glasgow Evening Times newspapers, was demolished and redeveloped. STV's Edinburgh operations are now based at small studios in George Street in the city centre.
[edit] Identity
Scottish's visual identity has changed many times throughout the years, and almost as often has their name changed between Scottish Television and STV. The first Scottish logo's featured the Lion Rampant as the channel's symbol. The first logo featured the static lion with the caption Scottish Television above and below, but was replaced soon after by four boxes containing the letters STV and the lion, with the Channel number below, accompanied by a voice over declaring "This is Scotland" and a shortened version of the station tune, Scotlandia. The next new logo in 1965 featured a box, with the words 'Scottish Television' above and below, into which the lion would spin into. This new look, accompanied by Scotlandia, was designed by Francis Essex in an attempt to make the channel more exciting. The look was later modified so that the lion zoomed into the box following, according to some reports, a complaint from The Lord Lyon King of Arms, the man in charge of protecting Scotland's heraldry.[16]
When colour came to the region, initially a pale blue lion rampant was used as before, however this was replaced within a year by a stylised STV. The solid STV lettering would be met by an outline of the lettering and the background would turn blue once both had met, accompanied by a trumpeted fanfare. Throughout the 1970s and up until 1985, this stylised STV was used as either a static caption, or form up from a pattered design that was supposed to represent tartan in which the lines of the tartan would merge to form the STV logo. Accompanying the look was a clock against a blue background with the white STV logo forming a pattern across the screen.[17]
On 31 August 1985,[18] a computer generated graphic thistle was used to create a new logo for the company when it re branded its on air identity to Scottish Television (no reference to STV) with a new soundtrack composed by Dave cooke, who also created a new start up piece called "Visions" which was never used. The look was accompanied by a computer generated clock on a grey background with the 3D thistle included in the top left corner. In 1987, a special version of this ident was launched, featuring the thistle against a boxed background which was used to mark the stations 30th anniversary. This version was dropped as the main ident in over Christmas 1987, but was occasional still used until December 1992. During 1988, a number of new idents were used which included "88 On Scottish" variations of the 85 idents such as sculptures made of sand and snow to mark summer and christmas programming respectively.
In January 1989 new Blue computer graphics thistle was created[19] which was accompanied by a soundtrack of bells with emphasis when each circle fell atop another. At the same time most In-vision Continuity announcers where dropped with only overnight still having them until the start of 1990. In September 1989 the first ITV generic look was introduced, Scottish adopted the look in September 1989 when the look launched it,[20] but rarely used it and by December 1989 it was dropped which made the company the quickest to drop the generic look. In 1990 a supplementary ident was introduced which featuring several circles rolling in over the thistle and falling over as one to reveal the name Scottish Television.[21] during 1992, a series of addition idents were developed featuring picture postcard views of Scotland with the thistle fading in at the end of the sequence. During this period another variations of the 85 idents was used in which the thistle was underwater which was used in the early 1990s.
In January 1993, updated version of the 1989 thistle appeared,[22] which fea solid silver thistle, falling back onto a moving purple background accompanied by a trumpeted fanfare. This was altered in November 4, 1996 to a smoother background and orchestral fanfare and more advanced effects upon form-up.
Scottish refused to adopt the 1999 ITV generic look and instead, alongside Grampian Television launched a new on 28 February 2000, featuring a blue square with the words 'scottish tv' below against an ident featuring Scottish people and or places. There were 15 different idents created with Over 45 different variation being created,[23] included Three 30 sec version[24] These idents, with the cool colour scheme and ambient music lasted until 6 January 2003, when Scottish and Grampian adopted the celebrity idents package, albeit with their own logos attached and with idents featuring a lot more Scottish personalities alongside those of ITV1.
The celebrity look lasted until 2006, when the Scottish and Grampian names were traded in for one unified look: STV. The idents featured an elongated blue 'S'. The idents were made up of scenes of Scottish people in various locations passing around the 'S' from person to person in differing scenes, until one person places the S in the centre of the screen. The upbeat music makes a stark contrast from the ambient used six years previously. This look continued until February 2009, when an updated look was introduced. A picture postcard theme would flip over to the right to reveal another theme. This flipping increases in pace and as the camera pulls back, we can see these images are inside a triangle, which then flips to reveal the STV logo against a gradiented blue background.[25]
[edit] Programmes
A list of programmes made by Scottish Television. All programmes now come under the banner of STV Productions.
[edit] News
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[edit] Current Affairs
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[edit] Sport
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[edit] Features and Documentaries
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[edit] Entertainment
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[edit] Drama
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[edit] Children's/Animation
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[edit] Religion
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[edit] Scots Gaelic
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[edit] References
- ^ a b "Scottish Television - CLG Wiki". Closinglogos.com. http://www.closinglogos.com/page/Scottish+Television. Retrieved 2011-01-07.
- ^ "Scottish Television (STV)". 78rpm.co.uk. http://www.78rpm.co.uk/scottish.htm#purdy. Retrieved 2011-01-07.
- ^ "The Theatre Royal:Entertaining a Nation" by Graeme Smith ISBN 978-0-9559420-0-6
- ^ "THE ITV STORY - PART 3 | A TELETRONIC TELEVISION HISTORY ARTICLE". Teletronic.co.uk. 1955-09-22. http://www.teletronic.co.uk/itvstory3.htm. Retrieved 2011-01-07.
- ^ Writer Haldane Duncan EMAIL MORE ARTICLES. "Part 07: Scottish TV times | Haldane Duncan | TV Heroes". Transdiffusion.org. http://www.transdiffusion.org/emc/tvheroes/haldaneduncan/scottish_television_times.php. Retrieved 2011-01-07.
- ^ "What's on Channel ten, hen". Scottish television 31 August 1987
- ^ Cherry, S, ITV: The People's Channel, Reynolds and Hearn, London 2005
- ^ Black, P, The Mirror In The Corner - People's Television, Hutchinson & Co, London, 1972
- ^ http://up.metropol247.co.uk/barcode/STV%20Oracle%201981.jpg
- ^ http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-sir-william-brown-1281409.html
- ^ Chris Stone City Editor (1998-02-24). "Scottish sells its stake in Ulster TV for #23.9m - Herald Scotland | Sport | SPL | Aberdeen". Herald Scotland. http://www.heraldscotland.com/sport/spl/aberdeen/scottish-sells-its-stake-in-ulster-tv-for-23-9m-1.352883. Retrieved 2011-01-07.
- ^ Wilson, Andrew (1996-03-13). "Broadcaster rules out takeover of Scottish TV but recognises its own vulnerability to move by Granada YTTV enjoys dramatic profit growth - Herald Scotland | Sport | SPL | Aberdeen". Herald Scotland. http://www.heraldscotland.com/sport/spl/aberdeen/broadcaster-rules-out-takeover-of-scottish-tv-but-recognises-its-own-vulnerability-to-move-by-granada-yttv-enjoys-dramatic-profit-growth-1.462286. Retrieved 2011-01-07.
- ^ Robert Powell And Iain Wilson (1996-07-26). "Scottish Television buys The Herald - Herald Scotland | Sport | SPL | Aberdeen". Herald Scotland. http://www.heraldscotland.com/sport/spl/aberdeen/scottish-television-buys-the-herald-1.444050. Retrieved 2011-01-07.
- ^ Scottish Media buys Grampian for 105m pounds, Cathy Newman, The Independent, 11 June 1997
- ^ "footage_library". Web.archive.org. 2008-01-03. Archived from the original on 2008-01-03. http://web.archive.org/web/20080103163748/http://www.stv.tv/content/tv/footage_library/Decades/1970s.html. Retrieved 2011-01-07.
- ^ Jefferey, Dave. "Flash Files". 625: Andrew Wiseman's Television Room. http://625.uk.com/tv_logos/flash.htm#scottish. Retrieved 19 August 2011.
- ^ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdvgRih_ltE&
- ^ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBxaskOFNcc
- ^ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mrQ3BNZt7c
- ^ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsvPPGDY6PQ
- ^ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXo3KeFXsUM&
- ^ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lzj_w_RK_8c&
- ^ http://www2.tv-ark.org.uk/itv_scotland/idents3.html Not all incluced
- ^ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gM8GhYJIIRI
- ^ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKC3ATuBP5g
- ^ http://ftvdb.bfi.org.uk/sift/title/235597
- ^ "BFI | Film & TV Database | HELLO, GOOD AFTERNOON, WELCOME (1979)". Ftvdb.bfi.org.uk. 2009-04-16. http://ftvdb.bfi.org.uk/sift/title/230226. Retrieved 2011-01-07.
- ^ http://www.heraldscotland.com/sport/spl/aberdeen/from-football-to-night-flyte-1.592132
- ^ "BFI | Film & TV Database | BOOKIE (1983)". Ftvdb.bfi.org.uk. 2009-04-16. http://ftvdb.bfi.org.uk/sift/title/153272. Retrieved 2011-01-07.
- ^ "BFI | Film & TV Database | The SPAVER CONNECTION (1984)". Ftvdb.bfi.org.uk. 2009-04-16. http://ftvdb.bfi.org.uk/sift/title/355443. Retrieved 2011-01-07.
- ^ "BFI | Film & TV Database | WINNERS AND LOSERS". Ftvdb.bfi.org.uk. http://ftvdb.bfi.org.uk/sift/series/17600. Retrieved 2011-01-07.
- ^ http://www.b4films.com/main/credits05.html
- ^ http://www.grantmasonfx.com/html/cv_tv.htm
- ^ "BFI | Film & TV Database | The DIVINE TRUTH - THE GREEK SEARCH (1979)". Ftvdb.bfi.org.uk. 2009-04-16. http://ftvdb.bfi.org.uk/sift/title/189012. Retrieved 2011-01-07.
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